A leading, trailblazing strategy consulting firm
We see ourselves as a strategy consulting firm that provides professional insights into business, which in turn, enable leaders to navigate complex systems and make solid strategic decisions for sustainable results.

What drives us

OUR PHILOSOPHY.

At Orenda Advisory & Strategy, we consider business and industry issues in the context of interdependent and intertwined economic, social, and environmental systems. Our strategy consulting firm offers our clients a refreshing perspective on the current dominant practice of treating impacts as mutually exclusive.

We recognise that adopting a short-term view and approach does not benefit the client in the long run. Our aim is to enable the client to make the most appropriate decisions for their context. We acknowledge that companies, economic regions and countries are complex systems, that exist within even more complex social and environmental systems. As a strategy consulting firm we take an advisory role with our clients, respecting that they themselves are experts in their own environment.

This is how our clients are empowered to effect their own change through the methods we deploy. We cover fields as diverse as management, engineering and social sciences. Our approach can be applied in many environments; we provide solutions for corporate, political, urban, economic, ecological, and social systems.

In the beginning

OUR STORY.

History

Holding more than two decades of industry experience, the founders have effectively applied systems thinking in their own management practice over the years. At Orenda Advisory & Strategy, there is a passionate belief that this approach can be applied in any industry to create an equally great effect.

Experience

The conventional management thinking and practice used by organisations to solve problems promotes breaking these apart so that they are more manageable. The Orenda founders discovered that this approach often results in silo thinking and unintended consequences in the long term.

Purpose

The founders of Orenda believe that a more holistic approach will provide better results to businesses and economies. Orenda Advisory & Strategy seeks to provide strategic and advisory solutions that recognise the importance of the whole in better understanding complexity.

This is how, at Orenda, we enable leaders to see their way and navigate through complexity.

Who we are

MEET THE TEAM.

Tebogo Mekgoe

Co-founder and Executive Director
BSc (Eng) Mechanical Engineering, MBA (University of Cape Town)

With over sixteen years of aviation, transport, tourism and executive management experience, Tebogo is a well-rounded professional with profound experience in strategy and leadership. Tebogo’s approach and philosophy to organisational dynamics, and life in general, is considered by many to be counter-intuitive yet refreshing and illuminating. He has a passion for holistic thinking and working through complexity to come up with effective and simple solutions to problems. In line with his approach and philosophy, Tebogo has applied Systems Thinking extensively, and to great effect, in his management practice. His view of Systems Thinking is that it is a language that is a powerful tool for communicating and clarifying complexities and interdependencies. It is an approach that he passionately believes should be applied to management and organisational complexities as it is more naturally suited to the task. Tebogo is also part of the adjunct faculty at Henley Business School in South Africa, where he lectures in Systems Thinking.

Davina Zietsman

Co-founder and Executive Director
BEng Civil Engineering (University of Pretoria), MScEng Transport (University of Cape Town)

Although born in South Africa, Davina’s early childhood was spent in Swaziland, where she attended primary and high school. After moving back to South Africa at the age of 16 to begin her tertiary education, Davina began to realise that Africa is a truly complex continent with an array of deeply rooted challenges that present exciting development opportunities. Unlike a conventional civil engineer interested in the structures supporting buildings, Davina was (and still is) driven by understanding the structures shaping societies, industries and organisations. This is reflected in her career choices, having gained over seven years of aviation, transport, and operations experience. She also has experience in planning – from infrastructure to business – and the design and implementation of strategic initiatives. Davina, a published author, has said her biggest motivator is growth: growth of self and growth of the collective. To support this, she spends much of her time researching, reading and writing, trying to uncover why things are the way they are and how do we get the results we want.

“I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.